Last evening at our Wednesday service a young man gave a testimony that turned into a thirty minute interview, our questions revealing much about our community’s hunger for sanctification; that sense of one’s body and relations and inward soul hallowed, given purpose, finding meaning in Jesus of Nazareth and his mission to heal the earth by living within its wounded spaces.
Marc, a creative, anxious, self-aware, yet deeply loving friend had just finished a three day silent prayer retreat on the campus of a Catholic retreat center. This talkative young man—raised Catholic—had learned to love Jesus personally in the Fellowship of a Four Square Church in California, where he then lived and worked.. In ways very similar to my own life experience as a young man, Marc felt compelled to move to his familial home in Seattle.
A year and half ago God had sent Marc into our quirky little church whose feel is familial and human—a place to walk inside the natural rhythms of laughter and awe, between the loneliness that is the human condition and the hugs of holy communion, the Word spoken and acceptance. It’s not hard to imagine how much Marc missed the richly emotive worship and friendships of his old church in Cali.
Then came the silence. We asked about what he heard; The difficulties in shutting down the noise of his mind when all electronics are removed. Conversely, the promise of hearing anew God’s voice.
It was a fun, animated and illuminating dialogue in a small community that is used to it. Both fun and painful discussions are inherent in a church with a mix of European individualism and both Native American and Asia-Pacific tribal and communal cultures, of believers and doubters, of moderns and post-moderns, Republican. Democrats and those committed to Black Lives Matter agendas. The most painful of our communities conversations followed the election of President Trump.
On a given Sunday an inter-active set of ancient and new rituals fill our small church. The lighting of candles in prayer, a confessional space with one of the ministry staff, lay readings of the Old Testament, Gospel and Epistle, a conversational sermon and Holy Communion interlace with laughter and an almost irreverent informality.
As Marc concluded his reflections from the Silent space with God, he illustrated it’s import by comparison with an adult baptism at his California Church—a moment powerful and transformational. Marc described his Silent retreat this last weekend as equally transformative and in ways that will likely reveal themselves over time. (Note: We at WSCN would not have allowed a Re-Baptism, though gladly offered an Affirmation of his original Baptism as an infant in his Catholic Parrish church—hopefully witnessed with his family as a joyous celebration of what God initiated at birth, through his Catholic Church.)
Marc concluded with appreciation of his new small Naz faith community that, if truth be told, seemed far removed from his new life in Christ celebrated in Praise, worship and friendships in his Four Square Church. Reflecting upon his journey in faith and now in a Church that emphasizes our communion with the whole body of Christ, ancient and modern, in Spirit and in Sign—he added: ”Thank you for giving me room to be in a place that ultimately allowed me to hear and know Christ in ways—how to say it?—closer to the spiritual reality in the Catholic education and rituals I grew up in—but did not then experience.”1
It was a powerful testimony. I was aware of that sense of catholicity streaming in our DNA, knowing it was what attracted not a few to our community, I among them.
Blessings! Terry :)
1 Note: Quote is from memory and is interpreted in a way I hope reflective of the profound testimony given.
Additional Reflections:
AN EXCERPT FROM MY BOOK: “7 Faces of Jesus“—
My Thoughts 27—Is only Rome Right?
On: Exclusive or Universal? Being exclusive and universal is impossible. Yet it is what the ancient Church and every faith who makes the claim to ‘being the only true church’ seem to forget. If you are universal then you cannot afford to be exclusive—unique, yes—exclusive, No.
I was born and bred Republican. My mother, a saint, hated only two things: Catholics and Democrats. My first political awareness was the 1960 Presidential race between Nixon and Kennedy (Oh, I forgot, she hated the Kennedy’s too). Her world must have seemed to be collapsing around her as both of her hates were wedded in one John F. Kennedy. But my mom, like most followers of Jesus I know changed over the years. It may have begun when I asked her if I could grow my hair like President Kennedy. What is a 1950’s-1960’s mom to do? Now hating Catholics is like Christians hating Jews, which is hard, given the Savior being Jew and our DNA flowing from all things Jewish. Still, we manage. The Republican party I was raised in was the party of Lincoln and home to black America and Theodore Roosevelt a progressive, not to be confused with that liberal socialist—Franklin. Rockefeller and Goldwater (liberal and conservative) were both at home in the Republican family. So I find it confusing—no, right down disgusting to now be in a party where I’m called a RINO (Republican in Name Only) because my own perspective is closer to the Theodore Roosevelt—Richard Nixon activist but limited government than the modern nearly Libertarian Republicans.
I can live with my more conservative brethren and sisters. I too want limited government, much less regulation, less oppressive taxation and the freedoms that attend. I believe we are an exceptional nation and am a Nixonian internationalist. I also want to protect the life and liberty of the unborn and the historic definition of marriage. Where I part waters is in areas of immigration, the rights of gay persons in housing, jobs, civil unions, adoption and the desperate need for an inclusive reality and branding of the party in terms of race and gender and sexual orientation…
My party has forgotten: If you are universal then you cannot afford to be exclusive—unique, yes—exclusive, No. And for much of history it is what the Roman Catholic community forgot as well…not to mention my mom and the rest of us.
Again, (Pope) John Paul II was revolutionary in this respect. He was asked: “Why, among all the Christian Churches, should the Catholic Church alone possess and teach the fullness of the Gospel?” His answer is instructive as it is radical.
“There is salvation only and exclusively in Christ. The Church, inasmuch as it is the Body of Christ, is simply an instrument of this salvation... ‘The Church is in Christ as a sacrament, or a sign and instrument, of intimate union with God and of the unity of the entire human race’. [John Paul Quoting from II Vatican Council]
…Man is saved in the Church by being brought into the Mystery of the Divine Trinity, into the mystery of the intimate life of God. This cannot be understood by looking exclusively at the visible aspect of the Church. The Church is a living body. Saint Paul expressed this in his brilliant insights about the Body of Christ (cf. Col 1:18). [This] teaching is Christocentric in all of its aspects, and therefore it is profoundly rooted in the Mystery of the Trinity. …[Now] …Those who do not persist in charity, even if they remain in the Church in ‘body’ but not in ‘heart,’ cannot be saved. All of the Church’s children must remember that their privileged condition is not the result of their own merits, but the result of the special grace of Christ. Therefore, if someone does not respond to this grace in thought, in word, and in deeds, not only will that person not be saved, he will be even more severely judged’ (Lumen Gentium14).
People are saved through the Church, they are saved in the Church, but they always are saved by the grace of Christ.
Besides formal membership in the Church, the sphere of salvation can also include other forms of relation to the Church.
(Selections from “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” by Pope John Paul II, pages #136-143)
…Had this been the heart of all Rome’s Bishops there would never have been a Protesting Reformation, nor one needed.
And what of my mom? Well, her grand-daughter in law is Catholic. I say is because while now a member in the Church of the Nazarene and the wife of a Nazarene minister her baptism as a Catholic remains. My mom and I enjoyed throughout life an easy and comic argument in and around all these issues.
Indeed, on the night of her death I reminded her that all the instrumentation keeping her alive was largely the result of the work of Teddy Kennedy and that when she awoke in heaven she would be ‘Catholic’. She simply laughed and said… “Oh… Terry!”
You can Purchase”7 Faces” at:https://www.amazon.com/Faces-Jesus-American-Devotional-Holy-Love/dp/1520513453/ref=sr_1_6?crid=O5KO1
Comments